Resourceful recovery of WC@Co for organic pollutants treatment via Fenton-like reaction

The unreasonable disposition of tungsten waste not only causes serious environmental contamination, but also leads to the metals resource wastage. A sustainable approach was proposed to obtain the Fenton-like catalyst derived from tungsten waste, which exhibits high efficiency for peroxymonosulfate (PMS) activation. The recovered WC@Co, as a Fenton-like catalyst, was fabricated via thermal treatment of machining wet tungsten sludge, which induces the phase separation of Co and increases Co loading on WC. The formed Co 0 as the electron-donor can not only facilitate the electron transform to W 6+ , but also active PMS for reactive species, thereby contributing to the enhanced generation of SO 4 – , OH, O 2 − and 1 O 2 . Moreover, the high-valent Co(IV) was also generated in WC@Co/PMS system. These radical and nonradical pathways for reactive species make WC@Co/PMS system high oxidation capacity and stability for persistent organic pollutants degradation. Thus our proposed strategy has successfully realized recycling of metals such as W and Co for environmental remediation.